It takes no more than sitting down for two minutes with Paul Bowley to realize that he loves his job. He works in Donor Relations at an Atlanta-based nonprofit organization called Wellspring Living. The focus of Wellspring Living is the recovery and restoration of victims of sexual exploitation, and Bowley has committed the past two years of his life to working with this organization.
Soon after graduating from Shorter College with a degree in music, Bowley realized that he did not want to pursue a career as a director of music in a church, contrary to his college desires. He discovered a skill set in sales and spent his first few years out of school in that particular field. Soon enough, he felt that the sales world was not exactly where he needed to be investing his career. A long and humorous story involving coincidentally driving up alongside his mom—Mary Frances Bowley, President/Founder of Wellspring Living—on Atlanta’s downtown connector, led Bowley to sit down with her and her friend at lunch to discuss one of their upcoming projects. Bowley’s opinions and ideas were so valued that they asked him to come work part-time with the organization to head the project. The part-time job turned into an offer for a full-time job, and with complete peace and a leap of faith, Bowley accepted.
That first project was a production called “Passion for Justice,” which told the story of a trafficking victim through ballet. His second project was a 5k race, and after that, his assignments took off. Bowley has invested a great deal of time in marketing, retail, and donor relations—his current field of work. When asked about switching from corporate sales to the nonprofit world, he was extremely positive and without regret: “I love the idea of everyday being able to look back and understand my purpose exactly for the day.”
As a self-proclaimed storyteller, Bowley loves the opportunity to dive into the lives of recovered victims, see how their stories unfold, and tell them to others in the community. He drew an awesome reference to a story in the Bible—chapter four of the Book of John—where Jesus interacts with the woman at the well. “The woman has her life changed, then you look and the whole entire village is changed afterward because of her life change. It’s cool because my job at Wellspring Living is to be the person who connects the woman to the village.”
So what exactly is Wellspring Living doing in the community? In a nutshell, an employee might tell you “Changing lives.” The organization was founded ten years ago for women who need a life change. Wellspring Living holds the core belief that in order to experience life change in its truest form, one needs to have a change in body, soul and spirit. Thus, recovery programs are set in place to meet victims where they are in life and provide healing for them by meeting these three guidelines.
A healthy body includes no substance abuse, healthy food, exercise, and adequate sleep, among other characteristics of healthy living. Issues that affect the soul are broken down into two categories: presenting issues and core-root issues. Presenting issues are more tangible—drug abuse, addiction, depression, eating disorders, etc. Core-root issues are traceable “roots” or origins of the pain or brokenness that person may be experiencing. According to Paul, it is important to heal the presenting issues, but even more imperative to heal the core-root issues. “When you treat a presenting issue, but you don’t treat the core issue, she’s going to go away from that presenting issue and go to another presenting issue in order to get out the trauma that has happened in her life. What we do is we try to go to that core root issue—that’s how to get a healthy soul…. Most of the time for our women that [core issue] is childhood sexual abuse.”
Bowley continued by noting that most of the women served by Wellspring Living have been trafficked and are victims of CSEC (commercial sexual exploitation of children). In almost every case, the victim has some traceable story of early child abuse. “Childhood sexual abuse trauma arrests the development of a girl emotionally and mentally…. There are a lot of barriers for her to be able to live a healthy life. So if we can dial it back and get to that first trauma and find healing there, and then find healing from the subsequent traumas, she can begin to develop into a healthy person. That is creating a healthy soul,” he said.
Finally, a healthy spirit is achieved by instilling “…a spiritual element in everything.” Wellspring Living acknowledges that the love of God answers the deepest questions of life’s brokenness, which is why their program is centered on the Gospel of Christ. Bowley said the program aims to “flesh out” the Gospel through love and service, as well as get the girls face to face with the Word of God.
A mind-blowing statistic from Wellspring Living is that, as a result of the body-soul-spirit program focus, the organization can claim an 84% success rate for the recovery of the victims. Bowley mentioned that the national average for many recovery programs is about 9%.
Not only does the organization have a great big-picture model for effective recovery, but they also offer a dynamic range of programs and services. Wellspring Living has a program designed specifically for women and another specifically for girls. An assessment center exists to serve as a temporary safe house in which a victim can stay for two weeks immediately upon entering the program. Outpatient counseling is a huge point of emphasis within the programs.
In addition to the face-to-face work with patients, Wellspring Living has state of the art retail stores that serve as forms of revenue, resource, and informational centers. Training speakers on advocacy is a consistent project, as well as training for government programs and other organizations that want to get involved. Wellspring Living has already partnered in training with the United Nations, the Department of Homeland Security, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and the Fulton County DA’s office, among others. According to Bowley, a huge area of emphasis of Wellspring Living is to mentor similar organizations around the country by sharing their model for recovery with them.
Wellspring Living has fourteen beds within their program. As awesome as the success has been, and as beautiful as the changed life of even one person is, Bowley says the numbers are still too low. “Wellspring has fourteen beds, and there are less than fifty beds in the whole country for CSEC victims. 300-500 girls are trafficked every month, and we have fourteen girls for a seven-to-nine month program—that’s a terrible percentage in the big picture, which is why we’re looking to grow in Atlanta and share our model around the country.”
Education is a tool that is used within these programs to reach girls and inspire them. Bowley told of two girls who recently received high school diplomas from their program, after completing three years of high school in the time span of nine months. Another girl just graduated from their program and now wants to be a sonogram technician.
These are the stories that make Bowley’s heart come alive. “Getting to meet the donors and hearing their stories behind their desire to give is amazing, and I absolutely love it. However, it still pales in comparison to a story of success from a former CSEC victim.” Bowley told of a family who volunteered by offering up their lake house to Wellspring Living staff and the girls in their program for a weekend. When one of the girls found out the hosts included the wife and the husband, she tried everything she could to not go—a sign of her fear and lack of trust of men. She was convinced to go though, and at the end of the weekend she said to the man, “I was wrong about men. I have never seen a man so caring and gentle, and I now know that I want to be able to trust men.” Upon hearing this story, Bowley agreed that witnessing this kind of transformation is what he loves most about his job.
Finally, Bowley shared his thoughts and frustration with how society commonly labels sex trafficking a women’s issue: “It’s a men’s issue! The issue is with the victimizers, not the victims…. The perversion of men is a destroyer of culture…. These guys are stealing something they can’t give back when they use these girls.” He went on to add, “We can’t just be content with the fact that laws are changed, we’ve got to make sure our sons and husbands aren’t buyers, and that our daughters aren’t victims. More respect for young girls’ lives – that’s the type of message we need to be sharing.”
“A terrible statistic is that the average girl will die within seven years of her first transaction. You’ve got either death as an option, or here (at Wellspring Living) you have not just life but abundant life.”
If you are interested in volunteering your time with recovering victims, don’t hesitate to contact Wellspring Living or Meet Justice with questions of how you can get involved.
